


Like A Word, A Sound, A Song

by aenor_llelo



Series: For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing [1]
Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Accidentally Orphaned The Original, Alien Biology, Autistic Connie Maheswaran, Autistic Steven Universe, Body Horror But Only A Little, By Human Standards At Least, F/M, Flowers, Gem Language, Gem Neurotypical Is Not Human Neurotypical, Gemsong, Greg Universe Is A Good Dad Or At Least Trying To Be, I See Y'all Using It And It Fills Me With Joy, Kisscoding, Music, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Past Lives, Remember How Steven Is A Fusion Because I Do, Steven Universe is a Diamond, The Maheswarans Starring In 'Forgot My Son-in-Law Is An Alien', This Fic Also Originated Kisscoding, This Is The Fic That Started The Gemsong Headcanon, gem culture, was thinking about asgardian allspeak and now we're here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-03-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 10,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aenor_llelo/pseuds/aenor_llelo
Summary: It starts with a well-meaning question from Mr. Universe.orHe is both human, and not. She forgets, sometimes.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran/Steven Universe
Series: For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1604959
Comments: 543
Kudos: 1703
Collections: And Marvel At A Diamonds Many Facets, Non-horny Biology, Steven Universe Completed Recommended Reads





	1. But They're Learning, At Least

**Author's Note:**

> This is a repost! the series was accidentally orphaned.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A first of many "human beings" talks.
> 
> or
> 
> Gems don't speak English. They don't really speak at all.

* * *

Steven had suddenly remembered some kind of ice cream sandwich sale and had rushed off instantly on a determined quest to feed Connie all the foods her parents don't allow her to eat at home. It's sweet, and she doesn't mind the wait, but it's still a little awkward to suddenly be left alone with ~~Mr. Universe~~.

 ~~Greg~~.

 ~~Greg Universe~~.

Mr. Greg.

"So.." At least he looks about as awkward as she feels, cheeks puffed out under his beard. "Swords, huh?"

"Oh! Swords! Yeah!" Yep, swords, Connie can talk swords. Connie can talk swords, and keep talking swords until they forget they're supposed to be awkward around eachother. "I've been taking lessons with Pearl every other day after school."

"Oh wow. Pearl as a teacher?" Mr. Greg's bushy eyebrows threaten to fly off his head with surprise. "Pearl as a _teacher_. Wild. She treatin' you okay?"

"She's a very harsh teacher. But in a good way!" She thumbs at a new rough patch on her hands, and laughs. It's funny, to be so fond about soreness and calluses. "I'm the _cool_ kid in my PE class now. I've never been the cool anything before." 

"Then let me officially welcome to Coolsville- population, you." He idly tunes the guitar, not quite ready to put it away. "So you've been at the temple a lot, then. Hanging out with the Gems."

"Just Pearl. A-and Steven, since he's part of the training now. I'm not really... _hanging out_ with Garnet, or Amethyst. Sometimes they watch, though."

"Hmm. They talk to you much? The Gems?"

That's... kind of a weird question. "Well, Pearl talks to me. First it was just pointers, or old war stories, but now we end up talking books while sparring as multitask training. She likes to pick apart how wrong historical books are." _The others, on the other hand..._ "And I guess Amethyst is pretty chatty, when she wants to be. But Garnet's about the same as usual."

All out of guitar to tune, he finally puts it away, fingers drumming on his legs. "Listen, Connie... this is probably gonna sound weird, but have- um, how've you been feeling, now that you hang around the Gems? Physically, I mean."

How _doesn't_ she feel, really. "I'm always a bit achey after training from all the workout, but Steven always heals me afterwords. I think it's been making my muscle build faster?" Connie stops. She doesn't know why she trips over the next example. "He fixed my eyes. That's how we found out he had healing powers." She fishes a hand through her glasses. "I don't even need these anymore. I just wear them so my parents won't freak out." She scrunches up her face to squint at Mr. Greg. "You're asking a lot of weird questions. Are you saying something _should_ be happening?"

"I dunno." He looks away for a moment. "Migraines. Dizziness. Weird head stuff."

What. "Why?"

"You know how Gems are, well, _aliens_." She nods, he nods. It's good. "Aliens that can speak perfect English."

"Well, they have lived on Earth for thousands of years."

"Jasper didn't. Lapis didn't. They hadn't been on this planet since the Gem War, probably never even _met_ a human before Steven!"

"Oh. _Oh_."

"Yeah." 

"So... how?"

"Gems... don't actually speak. They never have." He rakes a hand through his hair. "Not naturally at least. Their 'language' is more of a... song. This stream of music that worms its way into your brain and turns itself into words. How do you think Steven got so good at music? He's kind of made for it."

"So when you were asking about migraines..."

"Gem language has a lot of weird frequencies, and it can mess with our human heads. It really depends on the Gem, and their mood, ya know?" He winces at an old memory. "I almost passed out once listening to Pearl talk for too long."

If Connie thought about it, _really_ thought about it, she could almost remember an odd pressure in her ears, after the first time she had talked to the Gems. But after her and Steven became friends... it never happened again. She had been so excited, so scared, so _happy_ after all that day, that she had... forgotten.

There must have been something in the look on her face, to make Mr. Greg scramble to reassure her like he did. "Hey, hey! If you couldn't tell anything was wrong, it's obviously different for you. That's a good thing. It means they're learning, and you're part of that."

"I'll keep that in mind, Mr. Greg."

Steven runs back to them as tireless as ever, with a little more snacks than he had meant to leave for. The embarrassed giggle in his voice as it wraps around her name rings like a song.

* * *


	2. Resting Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mom said the monsters don't have a pulse.

* * *

The first time she'd caught him asleep, she had stared.

It was weird. It was rude. 

(It was kind of creepy.)

She just couldn't help it. Steven, by definition, seemed to always be in motion, even if he was sitting down and doing nothing. A loud, bright bundle of life that generated presence no matter how small he seemed. But here, sitting slumped in his sleep like one of his teddy bears, all of it was gone. He even managed to look softer, somehow. Hardly moving.

Hardly breathing.

Next thing she knew, she was shaking one bleary eyed Steven out of his accidental nap. In her defense, she kind of panicked. The line between 'sleeping' and 'peacefully dying' could be a bit of a grey area.

It was fine. Steven was fine. Everything was fine.

=<>=

They were watching a movie in Mr. Greg's van. Steven fell asleep.

"It used to freak me out, too."

She snaps her head away. "Wha-"

Mr. Greg flicks his eyes knowingly at his son. " _That_. Sleeping like someone toggled the off switch on him. He's been like that since he was a baby."

"Must've been nice not to have a fussy baby."

"Gave me anxiety more than anything. Babies are _supposed_ to fuss. I kept thinking he'd gotten sick." A guitar callused hand reaches out to tidy stray black curls. "But this is his normal. I can't imagine him without it."

=<>=

Mom said that the Gem monsters didn't have a pulse. A week later, Connie holds Steven's hand while they walk, and for once she's glad that he never quite caught on to what falls under normal human friendliness.

It's stupid. She's being irrational. Steven isn't a wayward shard or corrupted Gem- he's just _Steven_ and she's grabbing his hand out of nowhere wondering if he has any pulse. So what? What does it matter if he has a heartbeat or not? Pearl doesn't, and that never bothered her before.

It shouldn't freak her out. It doesn't. It can't. It _won't-_

She felt it. A pulse.

Small, so very small. No, no- not small, never small, Steven was never _small_. But... distant. Strong yet distant, like the slow drum of thunder.

It's strange. It's alien.

( _It's Steven_.)

=<>=

Steven is the ashen, bloodless shiver under his own weight as she carries him. He is his head weakly turned outwards, eyes fixed on everything and nothing. He is a hand reached outward, he is a breathless voice begging for his life. He is a heartbeat, so uncomfortably present, a frantic, wild hammer against the dying anvil of his body bleeding out through her dad's jacket.

Steven is a living hologram, the shape of a boy that impassively observes her from across the floor. A walking glitch that clips on air over the craters he has made with words alone. Their hands meet for a moment as he takes back his body from her, and she finds no pulse, only a persistent ringing vibration leaving its ghost even as she steps away.

Steven is twinning tearful smiles, a joyful dance for two, a spinning flash of light rocking on its own axis. He is the grateful disbelief on his face, a deep bubbling laugh as the ground shakes with someone else's tantrum.

He is the heartbeat singing into her hands, distant, strong, and so irrefutably alive.

* * *


	3. I, We, Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven needs a name.
> 
> or
> 
> Pronoun trouble.

* * *

Steven had waited for her outside of school, and she's just now realizing that it should have occurred to her that he would have been with Lion, because _of course_ Lion goes everywhere with him. Which would be fine except that Lion is an obscenely fluffy and pink _actual lion_ that also happens to be about the size of a horse. Stretched out under a tree. By the main entrance of the school. Where everyone can see. 

And, oh boy, does everybody see. The student body is rife with double takes, awed exclamations, and eager phone pictures. A halo of curious kids surrounding a boy and his lion, just a touch too scared to get any closer.

Not that he knows. He's elected to fall asleep under the shade of the trees, so Connie simply cuts through the crowd and pokes him awake.

"Oh, hey Connie." He wipes the sleep out from his eyes. "Didn't mean to doze on you. Lion was so soft, and it was so nice out here, we clocked out."

"It's cool. Now let's get out of here before the crowd gets too wild."

=<>=

"You did it again."

"Did what?"

"The 'we' thing."

"I did? Oh, jeez." He turns to sound a muffled drone of despair into Lion's fur. "I don't really _mean_ to, it- it just comes out, sometimes."

"Is it... does it have to do with-" She gestures at his gem. "With when you..."

She looks, really looks at his gem, and remembers a face blank with rage, a scream that made craters in the ground. A single-minded, unstoppable shield, a boy that walked on air.

"When there were... two of you."

"Oh. Yeah. I think- yeah, it's kinda that."

For a little while, the only sound is Lion's deep breathing and the crime show her parents are watching downstairs.

"When we-" Steven slaps his hand over his mouth. He looks back to his own hand for a moment, uncertain. "When I- when... _we_ were... split. I remember seeing myself from across the room. I never... it had never been like that, before. We were only ever Steven. We never even _knew_ there was a we. And then I was Steven again." His other hand clutches at his shirt, bunched around his gem. "Except I'm not just Steven anymore. I'm still them. I'm still _we_."

" _Jesus Christ on a bike_ , Steven. How long have you been like this?"

"I caught it about... a month? After we came back from Homeworld. But honestly?" He sighs, turning his head to the ever so slightly opened door. "Maybe it was always. I talked to myself alot, you know? Like the way we do when we're Stevonnie. I never thought it was weird, but now... I don't know."

"... You okay? Both of you."

Steven looks at her, and the hand on his shoulder, and takes it into his own with a quiet smile.

He doesn't answer her question.

=<>=

"Haha, it's so tiny." He turns over the little notebook in his hands. "What's this one for?"

"It's names." She bites out. "For you. For your _we_."

His smile falters.

"You're Steven. You're Steven, but you're still them, and they're still you. Still people. And don't all people deserve a name?"

=<>=

They are Sten and Vendan.

Sten is weight, stone, and earth. The garden that will grow their strength, their memory, their power, their kindness. A scaffold of body and blood and bone and life.

Vendan is crown, castle, and shield. The unyielding wall, the unmoved roar of their conviction. An apparition of light and sound and fury and thunder.

And Connie- suddenly sounding so unsure in a way she has not been to them, to _him_ , in what feels like years- tucks away her hair as she asks him if he will take the names she has given them.

"It's perfect." Steven's hand is on her face, their eyes meet and he hopes that she can see what this gift means to him, exactly what she has given. " _Thank you._ "

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And later that weekend, Priyanka will come across Connie's internet history, and have a miniature stroke over all the baby names popping up. There will be a very awkward discussion about whether or not Connie is pregnant. Steven never finds out about this conversation.


	4. Babelfish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gemsong is a finicky language.
> 
> or
> 
> Connie starts picking up frequencies.

* * *

Gemsong is a shifting, finicky thing. Who was speaking, to whom they were speaking, and how they were feeling at that moment could all drastically alter the nuance of a song. It was hard to pick up such things, when they directed their song to humans, only made known as a vague, inexplicable gut feeling.

Speaking to other Gems, it was a different story. As long as it wasn't directed at her, not made to weave into her mind with the illusion of words, Connie could pick up some of the difference.

Pearl was the easiest to start with, since she talked the most. Her song was ordered, swaying, just a touch neurotic. The sharp tap of piano keys, a dramatic backdrop of violins. The shriek of metal and the strike of swords. Swift and almost frantic, but slow and flourishing when particularly proud or self-satisfied. For all her composure, hers was the one most prone to wavering, to meandering, to discord.

Amethyst is rather percussive- taps, rattles, drums. Lazy and loud, with an underlying shaking hiss. A rumble of growls and the occasional spiteful bark. An unapologetic improvisation with no clear start or end. Often, there was a deliberate offbeat, some small purposeful discord thrown in haphazardly to unsettle others.

Garnet is a low, shifting, mechanical drone. Simultaneously soothing and forboding, rising and falling like water. Sometimes she heard the hiss and crackle of fire, or striking metal, just barely audible.

Bismuth was the rumble of stone, the wail of grinding steel, the ring of glass. The echo of a hammer striking an anvil in an empty room.

The Diamonds... the Diamonds were an orchestra of sound. Long, drawn out notes, persistently loud and deliberate like a siren. Their song bounced off of walls and floors and rolled over the ears like a crashing wave waiting to drown anyone that thought to stand before them.

For a long while, she did not hear Steven's voice in gemsong. When she was around, he was usually talking at least partly to her, or other humans. She would only hear his song in passing, the undertone in his words.

When he'd started taking his 'business trips' to space, something changed. Maybe it was the fact that he was aging practically overnight, spending weeks at a time surrounded by gems with not a human in sight.

It had been five trips in, after a full month out in the colonies, that he'd called out to her in unfiltered gemsong.

He froze up in realization, frantically apologizing with a mortified blush on his face, and she'd secretly started hoping she would hear it again.

And she did, many, many times.

Because there was some buried animal part in Steven's brain that kept registering Connie as a Gem, and so he ended up with an irreversibly strong inclination to talk to her in exactly the wrong language. Even though he could stamp it down most times, the natural musical undercurrent of gemsong was still so much stronger whenever he talked to her than with any other human.

His song is old guitars and ukuleles, chiptunes and pianos. A rippling steady rhythm of strings, underscored by an endless chime rising and triumphant. The hiss of tall grass and breeze and ocean sand.

He renders her name in the riff of a violin, a twin set of triplet notes from their old song.

* * *


	5. The Drinking Song

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lion is drunk driver friendly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accessibility warning for vision or reading impaired: this chapter contains minor passages with exotic formatting. These are deliberate stylistic choices and are not intended to be visually/verbally coherent.

* * *

There's a lumbering shape coming closer on the road as Doug takes in the mail. It's only Lion, ambling along as he always does, proudly displaying one of his new saddle cloths.

"Oh, Steven." He stuffs the mail (all junk, really) into his coat pocket. "This visit is rather sudden of you. What's up?"

The boy's head slumps further down into Lion's mane, then jumps back up with a start. "Mr. Dad Maheswaran?" He squints. "Whatter...you doin' front've my hooouse...."

"I live here, Steven. It's _my_ house."

A fact that fascinates Steven a little too much. "Oooooh... thas why 'ts blue..." His laugh is stuttering and lethargic as he blindly paws at his steed's face. " _Liiiiiiiooon_. Lion, we can' jst breakin t' Connie's house! Yooou sly dog, you..." He trails off into bubbling giggles again, sliding off of Lion's back and careening onto the concrete. " _Ahehihiiiiiiii...._ "

He just lies there on the concrete for a good few seconds before Doug pulls him off the ground and _Christ almighty_ , he knows Steven's almost taller than him, but the kid is _dense_. Steven stutters out some barely coherent protest, eyes hazy and swaying.

"...Steven, are you drunk?"

"Wha-" The question cuts off to a weak whine as Doug tugs the boy's rounded face about. No redness on the face, no lingering alcoholic smell. Steven suddenly tugs away, back crashing into the wall as he slides down. He futilely cranes his head back up, narrowing his eyes. "Mi'er M'hesw'rn? How'd you get here?"

_Oh dear_. "Never you mind. Let's just get you inside."

=<>=

"He's been like this for a few hours, now. Not that he can tell at all, he keeps forgetting where he is. I thought it was something he could sleep off, but here we are."

"Hmm." Priyanka shines a little light into the boy's eye, scattering the iris' color into a pale pink. Without the usual darkness of his eyes, the reptilian diamond of his pupils bores into his two onlookers, constricting lazily into thin crosshairs. He finally takes notice of the bright beam, letting out a slow, radio static hiss. "Well thank goodness he didn't try to drive here, in this state." They spare a grateful glance to Lion, currently rewarded with a sweet sausage.

"Now. Steven." He lets out a shuddering breath, huddling slightly in on himself. "Steven," she starts over, a little more gentle this time, "We're not upset at you. We just want to help, alright?" That, at least, prompts an unsteady nod. "Do you remember what did this to you?"

"There was..." He trails off with fluttering blinks, before Doug shakes him back awake. "I was- the fields, I he̵͎̞͑̋ă̶̪̕r̷̦͓͐d̵̟̫̽ ̶͍̘̇a̴̤͆ ̷͓͝s̶͈͝o̷̙͐̚u̵̱n̸͓̜̄d̷͙̓͒.̷͓̥̈́͠ ̷̜̄Ȉ̷͍t̶̪̹̕ ̷̺̙͋w̴̥̓a̶̯̍͜s̸͖̒ ̵͎̈e̴̫̋v̶͇̰̈́͗ë̴̲͕́r̶̻̰͂y̸̻͈͑͘w̶̧̤͛̽ḫ̵͉̕e̸̢̓r̸̫̊e̷̤̋̓,̷̡͖̉̎ ̷̼̓ͅî̴̪t̴͓̓̇͜'̶͕̖͘s̶͈̬̀ ̵̗͉̈́e̶̝͑͘v̶̪͘ẻ̷̪̓r̴̟̬̄̽ŷ̴̼̼̍w̴̛̜͉͐h̸͔̣̒̄e̵̺͒͝r̴̠͉̾̚e̴͔̓͊ͅ.̶̞̟̄" Scattering feedback overtakes his voice, turning it into musical babble as he feebly clutches his head. "Į̶̚t̷͕͊̀'̶̠̜̾s̵͝ͅ ̸̟͘ẹ̴͒͋v̷͖̿͋e̶̫͌̊r̶̳̈͜͝ȳ̷̰w̴̛̫̙̽ḣ̴͚͊e̸̢̬͐r̷̖̻̈́e̸̱͒̿.̶͖̫͌̈́ ̸͑͜ͅM̶̺̌͝a̶̘̋̚k̴͚͝ĕ̸̹ ̷̭̒i̷̥͎̓̐t̷͝ͅ ̷̞͍̈̍s̷̡̰͑t̷͓̒̅o̴̪̯̓p̷̩͑̎,̷̫̇̍ ̴̩͚̔w̷̡̮͂̅h̵̞͕̉ẙ̵̲ ̷̜͌͊w̶̼̉̓o̴̫͕͆n̷̝͂̔'̴̼̓t̵͍͈ ̶͑͜͝i̵̥̅ẗ̵̤́ ̸͎̑s̷͖͕̿t̴̨͔͐o̸̹̔p̷̹̝͊̾?̴̻̒"

"Steven, you're not making any sense." She turns back to Doug. "Why did he come to us for this? Where are the Gems?"

"I think Connie mentioned they were all out on missions these past few days. He probably didn't want to panic the civilian Gems, either." He stops, looking back at Steven. "Hold on. There's something-" Right there. A raised bit just under the collar of the boy's shirt. Doug pulls it down just a little, and takes in the pulsing triangular object sitting on Steven's collarbone.

Priyanka furrows her brows. "Could that be it?" Her gaze becomes determined. " Doug, hand me the bulldog clamp."

"Mrs. Mom'hes'wrn, was' goin' oǫ̷̝̭̥͌o̸̘̗͋o̴̘̥̐́̈́̅a̵̳͗a̵͚͚̼͉̒̔̈́̽a̶͇̞̩̿̀̂͠ǎ̴͚̠̥̉ȁ̶͇̩̱̞͒̅ȧ̴̛͍̣̺̱a̶̬̖͌Ä̷̦͉́̾̅Ą̴̯̐̈́Á̵͎͔̉̈́͝Ḁ̸̯̰Ã̵̝̮͆̅̚-"The blasted device lets out a high pitched shriek, prompting a weak, drawn out scream from its host. Priyanka snaps away the clamp like it burns. The shriek winds down to a low, electric noise.

Doug breaks first. "Fuck it. I'm getting the Gems."

"Oh, please. Like they'd let us into Little Homeworld."

"We aren't _total_ strangers to them. We were at that wedding."

"The news would drive the settlement to panic. You know Steven wouldn't want that."

"Yeah, well he's in no condition to be making that kind of decision." As if on cue, Steven feverishly giggles into Lion's mane. "There's got to be someone other than those three that can help."

Wait.

"No." Priyanka looks warningly back at him. "I know that look. That thing only listens to Steven."

"It can still understand me, can't it?" Doug slowly cups at Lion's face. "Lion." Tea green eyes look back at him. "You did the right thing, bringing him here. But we can't do this by ourselves. Is there anyone else that can help?" Someone like- "Like that one big Gem from the wedding? With the rainbow hair?"

Lion turns back to Steven, nudging at a hand with a soft rumble, and suddenly it's not Steven and Lion- it's Priyanka, sick in bed from some patient's stray pneumonia, and Connie, five years old, tugging at her hand asking why Mother can't read her a bedtime story.

And maybe Priyanka sees it too, because she swallows her knee-jerk skepticism and says, "Go. We'll be right here when you come back. I'll look after him for you." She is rewarded with something like relief in his eyes, before Lion kneels in front of Doug.

Alrighty. Okay. This is happening. "Just one leg over the other, right? Like a bike. Or some kind of... muscly... horse." He fumbles gracelessly on Lion's back when it stands, up, but hey, score. "So are we taking the garage or _sweet mOTHER OF_ -"

=<>=

Bismuth leisurely watches one of Lion's portals open up in her Little Homeworld forge. "Yo, Steven-"

A dark human man with square glasses gives a shaky wheeze from on top of Lion's back. "...not Steven. Okay." Wait, that was Connie's jacket. "Hold up. I know you."

"Yes, hi, it's me, Doug, hello. Connie's dad." He dismounts clumsily, startling as his hands touch the warm stone of the wall. "We've met. Garnet's wedding." He stops to take another heaving breath. "Lord. How does Steven do this every day?"

There's a small herd of Gems clustering outside. "Oi!" Bismuth hammers her hands together. "Get lost, ya pile a' rocks!" Doug finally catches himself as the strays finish scampering away. "Anyhow, what can I do you for?"

"Steven's hurt." Two little words that throttle her gem. "Some kind of Gem thing."

"Is his gem cracked?" _Oh, by the dying stars, it might already be too late_ -

"No? I don't think so. There's some kind of... apparatus attached to him that appears to be causing the problem."

Ah. Tech. That'll be a lot simpler. "Mind if I bring somebody? This'll probably be a two Gem job at best."

"You're the boss."

"Aight." Thankfully, it only takes a few steps to find what she's looking for. **"Ey, Tiny!"**

" _Yeah?_ " answer's Peridot's faraway voice.

**"We gotta 93-C, possible 41-A!"**

" _...can I bring Lapis?_ " 

**"No!"**

" _Alright, gimme a minute!_ "

=<>=

"Door's unlocked, Connie."

"Sorry I'm late, mom, school council held me up- Steven!?"

"Connie?" Steven is half tossed onto the couch, like he'd tried getting up and fell asleep halfway through. "Whatimiss..." He tries to push himself up with all the strength of a newborn kitten, and it would almost be cute if he didn't look so concussed.

"Steven, what are you doing here? What happened to you?" He simply leans into her, mumbling her name in garbled gemsong, his shirt snagging on the strange triangular tag attached to his collarbone.

"Don't touch it." Mom sounds from the kitchen. "I already tried. It just hurts him more."

"How long has he been like this?"

"Doug found him after lunch- but who knows how long he's been wandering around like this?" Mom idly sets the table with empty plates. "We're going to be ordering out tonight. How about that one Ghanaian pizza place? Their food is very balanced. There's two Gems coming by later, so I'll need to set something for them. What do Gems even eat? Is Steven still vegetarian? _I forgot to call Greg_ -"

"Mom. _Am'mā_. You're panicking. Breathe." One, two, three. "Fish Stew Pizza will be fine. Gems don't need to eat, but it'll still be polite to offer. Yes, Steven is still vegetarian. And _I'll_ call Greg. Hearing you stress out is just going to make _him_ stress out."

"Oh thank goodness you inherited my crisis brain."

=<>=

" _Hey, Connie. What's up?_ "

"Steven got... hurt. It's nothing _too_ bad, and it's not getting worse, but he's basically a walking drunkard until Bismuth and Peridot come by to fix this."

_"Aw, jeez. Put me on speaker, will ya?"_ A brief pause for that. "Hey, Steven," he says. _"Good old dad's here. You doin' okay?"_

"Mmmm..." His face shifts into something blank, and his gemsong warps every so slightly. " **'s that you, f'ther?** "

If the silence is any indication, Mr. Greg picked up on what that meant, too. _"Put me on camera."_

"Mr. Greg-"

_"Please. I just need to see."_ She can see the inside of the Dondai from behind him. _"Oh thank god. When I heard his voice I thought..."_ _that he split._

" **M sorry...** "

_"Don't apologize, Vendan. Even if you aren't feeling too Steven right now, you're both still my son. How's Sten holding up?"_

It takes a little too long for Sten to front. " _I am... holding._ " The waver in Sten's song is higher than usual, disappearing into another feverish bout of laughter. " _Geddit? Hahaha... holding..._ "

_"Welp, that settles it. I'm coming over."_

"We'll set a plate for you, Mr. Greg."

=<>=

Steven's scrambled gemsong had started peppering Mom's frantic Tamil with the English that Connie was trying to keep him steady with, and by the time Dad comes back with Bismuth and Peridot, Steven has stopped consistently speaking human language entirely.

"Oh wow." Bismuth puts a shrewd eye to the little device. "Where on earth did he run into this?" Steven gives a dazed chirp that apparently makes sense to Gems, at least. "Ah. The strawberry field. That makes sense."

"What is it, even?"

Peridot mans a little scanner over the thing, making an admirable attempt not to jostle Steven. "Ammunition from an Era 1 capture device. They were buried across battlefields waiting to capture passersby. It was _supposed_ to dissipate a Gem's form, and prevent them from reforming. After the war, they weren't really needed anymore, but were occasionally used as a supplementary measure to bubbling." 

"The round is supposed to latch onto the gemstone itself after total disruption of the form, overloading the Gem with sustained direct contact to low frequency sound." Bismuth pulls back Steven's shirt to expose the Gem, putting a different scanner. "Scrambles the Gem's brain, basically."

"One round means a live device sitting somewhere! Probably more. Ngah, I'll need a whole _team_ of sweepers!" She clears her throat, lifting up her dictation device. "Peridot Facet-2F5L Cut-5XG, mandating suspension of citizen access to warp AD-1-30 and immediate evacuation of site, due to unquantified presence of Era 1 crowd capture devices. Mobilize sweeper team for debriefing and standby."

"A' least I gottoem firs' right?" Steven slurs out. "An' no one el' sgot hurt."

"Yes, thank you, our dearest Diamond, in your infinite wisdom, for finding the very dangerous landmine by STEPPING ON IT!" Steven flinches, tearing up at the harsh tone, and Peridot immediately caves. "No, no, I'm sorry! I didn't mean it. You did not willfully endanger yourself. I should not have yelled."

"Is there anything we can do on the human end?" Greg offers. He had been mostly silent until now, taking Steven's drunken rambling in stride.

"Just keep doin' what your doing now- keep him calm. You've been keeping him stable, and that's probably kept it from getting worse. Us two'll work on getting the thing off him." Bismuth stalks further into the house, molding some soft material in her hands. "Ay, Priyanka! Your kitchen got gas stoves?"

=<>=

He hums her name into her shoulder, and the reflexive grip on her arm has real strength now.

"Hey there, stranger. How you feeling?"

"Like a hit and run. What happened to me?"

"You stepped on a Gem landmine, it didn't work since you don't poof, you crashed on my couch like a crazy all day."

" _N_ _oooo._ " He flops backwards, arm over his face. "Please tell me I didn't do anything _too_ stupid."

"You showed up with Lion on our driveway and fell face first into the concrete-"

" _Oh, no-_ "

"-and Mom and Dad had to watch over you, and your spooky music babble and your snakey Diamond eyes staring into their soul."

" _I'm so sorry Mom and Dad Maheswaran I will leave right away._ "

"Oh, absolutely not," Mom scolds. "You aren't going home in that state. Besides, it's almost dinnertime and I am almost _positive_ you haven't eaten all day."

"Yeah! Eat your human food, you unfed clod!"

"Bismuth? Peridot?" The fear is rising in his voice. "Wait, is-"

"Yes, I'm here too, Schtu-ball."

The mortified blush on his face is a little too adorable, and so is the betrayed look he levels her when she gives in to laughter.

"Aw, don't be like that." Bismuth practically croons. "We're here because we care."

" _Mmmm..._ "

"Want a slice of pizza? We got your favorite."

"...Yeah."

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peridot found out about brevity codes from human television and drafted one for the Crystal Gems.


	6. Bed of Flowers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He's gotten more powerful. All that power has to go somewhere.
> 
> or
> 
> There are worse ways to manifest what can only be articulated as magical radiation.

* * *

He waved goodbye with a smile, galloping away with a flourish on Lion's back into the swirling Diamond's aura of the portal.

There had been a subtle runway of flower petals left behind, already burning into nothingness from their travel.

=<>=

They had been at a farmers market, idly browsing at stalls with a box of tamales, wondering what this or that plant would look like if Steven went the way of Frankenstein and brought it all to life. (The dolphin plants, especially, triggered a brief fantasy of hundreds of little green rocking dolphins, and it was adorable.) But now, Steven was getting trigger happy with the plant jokes, choking her on her own laughter in a sea of terrible puns.

A triangular, strangely fractalized head of broccoli exploded in different colors. "I found Bismuth."

She considers the resemblance. "It looks more of a Peridot to me."

"You beautiful genius, you're right."

It's one thing when a teacher calls Connie smart, and it's another thing entirely when it's Steven, with his soft face and gentle voice and that fond look in his eyes as he calls her _beautiful_ and _genius_ as easy as he breathed. She almost believed she got used to it and then it hit her like a truck all over again, leaving her all blushes and nervous laughter, like some immature schoolgirl. 

And of course, her stupid school crush moment trips him up too. He blushes and cuts off whatever's left of coherent thought with bubbling musical _giggles_ while the entire booth's worth of flowers curls and glows and overgrows behind them.

=<>=

She tends to be the early riser, and so she is again, waking to her small college apartment while Steven sleeps on like a (ha!) rock. Or maybe more of a cat- lax, weighted, sort of rag dollish. Though this time, when she untangles herself from his arms, he's almost awake enough to feebly curl his hands just a bit too late, curling around stray petals instead of her _Under The Knife_ sweater. The unexpected sensation startles him awake. He blearily takes in the crushed petal in his fingers for a few moments, then bolts up.

Still as a statue, he takes in the circle of flowers clustered perfectly around them- osiria rose, purslane, water lily, clover, lavender- and most damning of all, bluebells. "I can... explain?"

"You totally can't."

"You're right." A despairing, drawn out sigh. His hands start to shimmer. "Sorry, I can get rid of them-"

"No, don't!"

He throws his hands out, scattering the petals more. "It's embarrassing!"

"No, it's adorable!" She straightens out her face. "Also, I've been keeping them for flower baths. I finally understand the Instagram girls now."

"Keeping them?" His voice drops to a horrified whisper. " _This has happened while I've stayed over, before?_ "

"It's happened like every time you've stayed over, Steven."

" _Oh, sweet mercy._ "

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in the original concepts for the show, rose would visit steven in his dreams as an adviser, and after those dreams he would wake up in a bed of flowers.
> 
> please look up dolphin plants... They Are Good


	7. Ghost In The Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But don't you know things about her you couldn't possibly know?
> 
> or
> 
> Steven forgets, sometimes, that he is not eons old.

* * *

"Tripped over another blasted plant again!" Bismuth barks, stumbling over a fruit bigger than her own head.

"They're called strawberries." Steven plucks a stray one into his mouth. "Try 'em sometime. The ones here are super sweet!"

"Eh! Maybe when there's not so many of time-forgotten weapons sittin' around waitin' for someone to walk into." She tosses a giant's axe to sail across the field into Snowflake's skillful catch, watching her put the wayward thing into Lion's waiting mane. "It's a beast and a half, all this rusted cleanup. Especially," she grunts, trying to muscle a shield from out of the brush and debris, "with all these overgrown _bushes_ in the way!" It takes Steven's green thumb to clear the brush out enough for the shield to finally come loose.

"Thanks, deepcut." Bismuth blows the dust off a fallen berry, experimentally popping it in her mouth. "How'd this place get turned into such a field anyway? I mean, look at these things!" She gestures at one fruit, half of Steven's size. "That ain't right."

He looks out at the field, past the buried weapons, the crawl of Gems among the green, his expression wistful and disarmingly nostalgic. "We planted them here- Garnet and I. This place held so much death for us and... I wanted to change that."

"Huh. Must've been pretty recent then. Did you _make_ 'em grow so fast?"

"What?" He looks back to her, waving it away with a little laugh. "Oh no, no. This was _millenia_ ago, it must have been right after-" He freezes- slack, halting. "After the..." He looks around, confused, his voice dying to a murmur. "...after the Battle of The Ziggurat."

The diamonds of his eyes shrink to crosshairs, his gemsong suddenly frail and strangled. " _Rose._ "

"Steven-"

She sees the price of their mistakes ( _her_ mistakes) in him and by the skies it _hurts_ , the brief unfiltered fear in his eyes as he strangles his words in his hands, as he staggers back away from her. In his song, stilted, discordant.

"I- I'm sorry, I didn't mean- I'm not- we didn't-"

" _Steven._ " Not Rose. Never Rose. Not again. "Hey. It's alright. You didn't do anything wrong."

The fear recedes just for a while. "Please don't tell Pearl."

"I won't."

=<>=

Connie lets out a drawn, long, tiny scream.

"What's up, strawberry?"

"It's this stupid paper! I'm supposed to write a hypothetical article about what this early Egyptian structure is for, but the thing is so vague. Look at it, it's just a little stone circle."

The picture glares at him in the dimming light of the room, a shallow circle of bricks in a courtyard.

"Can't even put a fire in it," she grumbles. "So why would-"

"Baby chickens." His voice stumbles as he haltingly elaborates. "Baby goes in the circle. It's short enough for the mom to leave, but tall enough to keep the babies from leaving. I think."

"Huh. That's pretty smart. How did you know that?"

"You know, I have absolutely no idea." A very long pause. "Guess I must have seen it before."

* * *


	8. And Call Me Pretty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The idea of beauty through alien eyes.
> 
> or
> 
> Connie is pretty.

* * *

"Steven, am I pretty?"

"Eh?" An odd question. Sudden, but there was something petulant in her expression that demanded an answer. "Yeah, I think so."

"But like, how?" She turns, head crouched on her knees. "How am I pretty?"

He has never questioned the idea that she was beautiful. He would say that, but that doesn't seem to be the answer she's looking for.

"I think it's beautiful how you can just slice cars in half."

"That's not-" She cuts herself off, laughing. "Oh, nevermind."

She sounded... _disappointed_.

=<>=

Once upon a time, Lars worked at a donut shop, and he and Steven would sit around and talk about girls.

Or rather, Lars would talk about girls, because that was Guy Talk and sometimes guys were just supposed to talk about girls. Apparently. Steven never really understood that. What was so special and mysterious about girls that made boys need to have special, secret talks about them? If a boy wanted to talk about girls so much, he could just talk to a girl. Lars could go talk to a girl. Sadie was right there. 

And Lars would get all weird and red faced, and say things like Steven That's Not How It Works and Oh Look At The Time, Better Get Back To Work. 

Guy talk was always kind of weird anyway. The way that Lars had talked about girls was weird. So... fixated.

The quirk of lips. The curve of legs, the shape of the chest. A rough appraisal spoken so casually, like it was normal to rate someone like a dive-in restaurant. Things that Everybody Just Got, Okay and that Steven didn't have any leg standing on, asking Weird Stuff Like That. And Steven would laugh, like they'd shared some inside joke, and insist that when he was older, he _would_ ask, and Lars wouldn't be able to run away from the answers any longer.

(And then Lars didn't work at a donut shop anymore, and Steven's middle name was a lie, and they both had more important things to do now than sit around and talk about girls.)

Even Dad had mentioned something to the effect (though maybe with nicer words than Lars did), asserting that one day, Steven himself would begin to appreciate certain people in a different way, and he would understand.

He is older now.

He is beginning to think that he doesn't, in fact, understand at all.

=<>=

"Hey, Steven? You want your usual?"

"Eh, not this time. Can I snag a calzone for here?"

"Wow, feeling adventurous, are we?" Jenny quirks an eyebrow up with a smirk. "Hey, mind if I join after bringing your order? I'm almost on break."

"Sure. I'll save a seat."

Jenny escapes the kitchen in record time, rice pudding in hand. "So, how you been?"

"I think I made Connie mad?" He confusedly takes a bite out of the calzone. "She asked me if I thought she was pretty, but when I said yes I think it made her more upset."

She cringes at his words. "Yikes!"

"What? What did I say?"

"Steven," she sounds slowly, the way she remembers her old teachers doing when she didn't get something as fast as Kiki would, "what _exactly_ did you say?"

"...I thought it was beautiful how she sliced cars in half?"

_Oh, this boy._ Jenny flounders for a solid few seconds, tenting her hands in front of her mouth with a slight hiss. Steven straightens up with a blink. (The first blink on his end since he walked in, she realizes. Weird, how these things stick out, now that they've grown up.)

It was a slow, deliberate thing highlighting the diamond of his eyes, trailing off into a lopsided leftover squint of hesitation.

"Listen, Steven. Sometimes a girl just wants to be pretty. Pretty in a _I like your hair and your body looks nice way_ , y'know."

"Huh."

=<>=

Connie is beautiful.

She is beautiful in her agility that glides so gracefully across the arena, caught in combat with ten Holo-Pearls.

She is beautiful in her strength- the strength that could drive her sword into the Diamond Mech, the strength that had used a laughing Jasper's arm as an unsuspecting fulcrum and flipped them over her head. The strength that could, would, _had_ held his life in her hands and said _I will keep you safe_.

( _They_ are beautiful. Stevonnie grips her sword as if it were their own, and as they run onwards their feet launch up and away, and for a moment it's like they can fly.)

She is beautiful in the feather light touch of bowstrings, skating across a neatly tuned violin.

Beautiful in the incidental, accidental harmony of her voice as they interrupt each other in conversation.

Beautiful in her pettiness at a piece of poor writing, beautiful in the awkward curl of buying a too-large sweater and insisting that it really did fit, from a certain point of view, if she tucked her body in it like a turtle.

Connie is beautiful, often doing beautiful things, and as Steven tells her all the unending things that make this his truth, he hopes that one day she will believe it too.

"But that's probably not the answer you're looking for." He looks off with a self-chiding click. "Sorry."

And _this_ laugh is surprised, delighted, genuine. "No, but... it's sweet. It's yours." And this smile, for all it's blush, is sly, too. "Though if we're going by your definition, then just for the record, you're beautiful too."

He laughs, a nervous, fluttering thing, and the greenhouse overgrows with flowers.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mortal concept of beauty is pretty driven by sexuality, so it follows that beings that Don't Do That and also have throngs of identical people would have very different ideas of what beauty is.
> 
> Thus, my idea of the Gem concept of beauty. The beauty of skill, of dexterity, of experience, of memory, of personhood. The only things that could truly be unique among Gems.
> 
> (This chapter was sponsored by the ace spectrum mood.)


	9. Not Exactly Vampire Teeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Don't stick your hand in an animal's mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accessibility warning for vision or reading impaired: this chapter contains a minor passage with exotic formatting. These are deliberate stylistic choices and are not intended to be visually/verbally coherent.

* * *

"Oh dear." Pearl looks more closely at the scissors in her hand, taking in the slight dent on the joint. "Amethyst must have been in a chewing mood again. _Honestly_. She has plenty of metals in her own room if she wants to teeth so badly."

She straightens the gauze in her hands, and Connie nearly drops her book as her teacher opens her mouth wide to unveil the wide, long canines flexing forward to cut the strip along her teeth.

"Oh, Connie!" Pearl chirps, quickly setting the cut aside. "I was just restocking bandage cuts. Did you need anything?"

Too stunned to speak, she meekly shakes her head _no_.

=<>=

"Hey, Amethyst?"

Amethyst harshly flexes her wide, blunt fangs to dig into the metal of a fruit can, dragging the lid around to force it open. "Yo."

"I've always wondered. Why does Garnet have that accent in her song? None of _you_ do, and Ruby and Sapphire don't either."

"Eh?" Amethyst pauses in her brute metal cutting. "Oh yeah. It's probably the teeth."

"What?"

"Yeah, she's got the biggest tusks out of all of us. It's the Ruby in her. So she has to be super posh when she talks or everything comes out like a lisp."

=<>=

They'd been watching an anime, one of her picks, and she had been trying to catch him up on the lore. He was paying a little more attention to her than the screen, eyes lazily turned toward her as she spoke, idly cutting away the rind of an orange with his... fangs. 

"Come on, don't freeze up on me," he squints happily, "If you go quiet how will I ever learn about the heart of the c̴͇̲̣̠̍̈́͋ͅa̷̤͓͖̮͓̞̔͑̐̽r̵̰͈̲̘̚͜͝ŕ̴͈̂r̶̛͉̘̻͍̦̱̅̎̈́ŕ̸̢̤̫̟͍͙̝̏̔̕̚̕r̵̡̛̘͌̋͊r̸̛̦͉̲̥̳̮̫̍͝r̶̡̯͚̗͕͚̓̌̋̒̈́̚r̵̖͛r̴̡̡̤̝̹͆̌͂r̵̗̟̫̝͕̲̋̀͋̍̽͘ř̶̹͚͕̙̔̋ͅr̶͈͓͛̽͐̂̚͝-"

His song breaks like radio static as she unceremoniously pries his mouth open to look closer.

Fangs. He had fangs. Not skinny, daggerish, YA romance novel vampire fangs. Wide, large, blunted things, followed by its smaller, sharper twins, all flexed forward uncertainly to the foreign presence of her hands. Kind of freaky. Mostly super cool.

_Semi-retractable teeth. There's certainly utility in aiding cutting power, or holding things in the mouth, as well as for social display- Gems do have a penchant for snarling and snapping, no matter how dignified they usually act-_

There's a slack, unfocused shock on Steven's face, and that's when her brain actually catches up with the simple fact that she literally just stuck her hand in his mouth for half a minute. She yanks her arms back and he shakes his head around. 

"Shit, sorry, I shouldn't have done that! Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He blinks sedatedly, coming back to himself. "That was super weird. What'd you do that for?"

"My curiosity seized me by the throat and I followed like the impulsive idiot that I am."

"Fair enough." He rubs a hand along his jaw. "Maybe don't do that again, though? I think I kind of blacked out a little when you did that."

"Spooky. Might be useful in a fight, though."

" _Connie my dearest darling strawberry love of my life do not stick your hand in a Gem's mouth please I was actively fighting the urge to maul your fingers before I blacked out._ "

"I wouldn't just punch a Gem down the throat, Steven, what kind of fool do you take me for?" A pause. "I would wear gloves first. For science."

" _That doesn't make it better!_ "

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gems in canon are occasionally depicted with large, blunt canines, which remind me of honing teeth. and if steven is any indication, gem teeth are rather sturdy (kid can literally break a water hose with his teeth). i also took some inspiration from water deer teeth.
> 
> the blurb about teeth affecting voice is true. Having a crowded mouth can force a person to change how they speak in order to compensate (hello braces).


	10. Up To Code

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kissing codes.

* * *

Gems, as it turns out, are very free with their kisses. _Very_ free. Gems could just pass by each other with a kiss and keep walking. If she had to describe it, it seemed... _conversational_. Sure, some were blatantly romantic, but most were no different than a casual 'hello'. It was one of those few things that oddly transcended the caste barrier of the old Eras. A Quartz could kneel down to take the kiss of a Ruby and no one, not even a more conservative Gem, would bat an eye. One could even go so far as to kiss a Diamond without fanfare, though most didn't dare aside from the Crystal Gems, or the odd overenthusiastic Gem who treated it like a hit-and-run.

And when a Gem was kissed, they would always take it in with a few short blinks, a notable thing when remembering how rarely Gems blinked at all.

Not even Steven was an exception, now blinking with the force of Peridot's hit-and-run kiss while she jumped around him with anticipation.

His gaze flattens with confusion. "Peridot, what am I looking at?"

The little Gem leans in conspiratorially. " _I coded Galaga._ "

"That's nice, sweetie. How do I make it stop?"

"Just blink really hard a few times! Hi Connie!"

"Connie's here?" Steven turns a little blindly toward the door. "Hey there, strawberry. I'll be over in a minute. Just gotta blink the Galaga out of my eyeballs first."

Peridot scrambles out the door, snickering to herself while Connie makes her way into the house.

"Galaga," Connie repeats. "In your eyeballs."

"Yeah." Steven blinks a bit more harshly before finally focusing on her. "She's been trying to code games and keeps kissing me the demos."

"Kissing you the- wait. She was putting code in your brain? Gems can do that?"

"Sure! Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl send each other stuff all the time. It's faster than talking, and it's good for things that are just, hard to articulate? Like pictures and memories. Or if Garnet wants to share her future vision."

" _Psychic kisses._ "

"It's more like an e-mail attachment. Or a pop-up."

"Don't ruin my high fantasy with your sci-fi tech talk, Mr. Universe."

" _Too late._ " Steven's face shifts into a blank mask, gemsong warping with monotone feedback. " _Beep boop._ **My mind is the internet. I know every continuity mistake ever made on television.** "

"Wow," she laughs. "Okay, Mr. Robot."

_Wait._

"So, kissing is like, data, for you." Connie can't quite help the red creeping on her face now. "Does that mean when _we_ kiss, you get..."

"Uh..." Steven unhelpfully stutters, blushing with nervous laughter. _Oh no._

" _Oh dear god you can hear all my dodgy romance poetry thoughts about us,_ " she whispers with a small sense of horror.

" _P_ _erhaps_ ," he finally squeaks.

" _Oh, no._ " She pauses with a frown. "Is this why I'm usually the one who leads? Have I been giving you weird psychic overload this whole time?"

"I guess a _little_ bit. Not in a bad way, though. But mostly I, uh, I've been trying to tone it down, on my end? I didn't want to scramble your brain with spooky psychic code."

"Steven. Honey." She grabs him by the shoulders. "I'll keep saying it until you believe it. Don't hold yourself back on my account. If you're being too much, I'll be saying it. Possibly by kicking you in the shins."

"Alright then," he laughs.

For a short bit, neither of them say anything.

"Steven, that's your cue to kiss me like a Gem."

"Oh. _Oh._ " He flounders rather adorably for a moment. "Well, I, uh-"

He hesitates, he always does before doing something like this, looking for one last bit of permission before he actually leans forward.

It's the distant drifting sense memory of something sweet and rosy, a peach-plum-strawberry kind of feeling mixed with the sharp, bubbling buzz of being healed. It's phosphene crackling like lightning in the back of her eyes. It's the rising, orchestral fermata of his gemsong, ringing in her ears, that sings _**I love her I love her I love her I love her I love her-**_

He pulls away, and now she's the one blinking off her schoolgirl crush blush, which is entirely undignified and the kind of thing that should stay a Steven-only thing and _most definitely not_ a Connie thing.

The embarrassment is only slightly mitigated by the very fond, slightly nervous look he gives her. Just a little.

"Was that okay? It looks like it might have been a bit... too much."

It _was_ too much.

It was overwhelming, it was barely hanging off of Lion's back in the fastest, deadliest part of warp space, it was _literal psychic alien code in her brain_ and he probably shouldn't do it again ever for the sake of her sanity.

" _Please do that again forever._ "

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fruit Fact. peach, plum, and strawberry are all fruits from the rose family.
> 
> please imagine steven sitting in an important meeting while sten and vendan play pong in his brain


	11. Only One Outfit, We're Creatures Of Habit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven wears the same clothes every day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accessibility warning for vision or reading impaired: this chapter contains a minor passage with exotic formatting. These are deliberate stylistic choices and are not intended to be visually/verbally coherent.

* * *

Steven's house is always unlocked, for her at least, ever since that one time he had kissed her hand and she felt something _click_ inside her brain that suddenly made Gem technology a lot more willing to cooperate with her, doors most of all. She could even get the Cloud Room to open for her sometimes.

So when Steven is running less early than usual, without so much as a single panicked apology text, she stops by.

He's up in his room, barely acknowledging her in a very Not-Steven-y way, clothes drawer slightly spilled over just this side of making Pearl cry.

"No, no, no, no, no..."

"What's up, biscuit?"

"It was right here, and now it's gone and now it's gone _and now it's gone-_ " She has to jostle him a little to break him out of the glitching loop his gemsong had started to fall into. The diamonds of his eyes settle a little as he finally looks back at her. "Connie? What are you doing here?"

"We were supposed to go out later, remember?"

"Oh no, I completely forgot." He slumped down onto himself. "I just got so caught up in..." he gestures at the chaos, "...all this."

"What even happened, anyway?"

" _I_ did, I-" He cuts off, face ruddied with embarrassment. " _You're gonna think it's stupid._ "

"Jokes on you, I love stupid."

"I l̶͚͘o̸̳̊s̸̰͆t̷̪̔ ̴̗̏t̴͕̚r̵͈̽à̶̯ć̵̻k̸̩͊ ̶̝̚o̶̜͝f̷̡̕ ̸͙͠m̶̗̚y̶̪̋ ̸̪́j̴̺̅ä̸̻́c̴̙͘k̶̖̓ē̷͕ṱ̷͑."

"You lost me, Steven."

" _I lost my jacket._ "

What. "What?"

"I know, I know. It's stupid." He holds his hands together. 

"You can't find something else to wear?"

"I just- I don't know how to explain it. It's like- the jacket _is_ me. Like the the stars on my shirts, or the pink on my clothes. If I don't have that it feels... wrong."

"Is that why you always wear the same kinds of clothes all the time?"

"I guess. I've never really had to think about it. And now," he laughs in a lopsided way, eyes tearing. "I'm crying, over a stupid jacket."

"Hey, it's not so bad," she offers with a hand on his back. "Maybe you can wear something close enough, that might help. Do you have anything like that?"

There was something like that, a black not-quite-a-suit jacket heavy enough to tide Steven through the day, so long as he put a flower pin or two on it. 

It's nice enough out. They had the needlessly fancy, falsely classic dinner-and-a-movie kind of day, warping with Lion into Spacetries for cake pops afterwards, and it's almost enough to forget why he was ever so upset until they ride back to his house and spot Amethyst-as-a-cat dragging his pink jacket across the floor in a failed attempt at stealth.

"Amethyst," Steven calls out. The little Gem freezes in place, taking in his conspicuously non-pink clothes and dangerously level smile. "What are you doing with my jacket. My jacket that I only have one of. My one jacket that I wear every day."

"Uh..." Amethyst raises her hackles, just a bit. "I HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT!" She scampers away, bonking her head on a wooden beam.

" _Amethyst._ "

"You're not my Diamond!"

"I _am_ your Diamond."

"Ugh, fine." She hisses a long note of defeat. " _Imayhaveeatenitbyaccident._ " Seeing the worn look on Steven's face, she quickly assures, "It's fine now, though! I spit it back up and washed it and everything! Everything's chill."

"You... ate my form jacket."

"I Am Sorry My Sweet Baby Boy It Won't Happen Again?" she offers unconvincingly.

A silence.

Once second.

Two seconds.

" _G_ _et on top of the fridge._ "

"Aw, what? No fair-"

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen kids, gem neurotypical is not Human neurotypical.
> 
> Considering that the show makes an effort to show human characters in different outfits, it stands out that Steven owns and wears basically 20 copies/variations of the same exact thing. It stands out even more in SU:F, where he's wearing his thing regardless of climate unless forced otherwise. Maybe it's related to how Gems just have one outfit.
> 
> This chapter was sponsored by That Big 'Tism Mood. who am i without my perpetual dress code of Long Pants and Button Shirt Rolled Up To The Elbows and Only This One Type Of Socks


	12. Claws and Tomes and Schrodinger's Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's a pretty serious relationship. They even... Hold Hands.

* * *

She never quite figured out why, but he liked her hands.

Her spindly, hard, calluses-on-top-of-calluses hands.

Every poetic refrain about the delicate beauty of a violinist's hands can go die in a dumpster bonfire. The strain of vibrating metal against her skin for hours on end had widened and dimpled the tips of of her fingers for good. Sword fighting with Pearl had been no different, for all the Gems were so careful not to damage her. Steven's healing powers had fed into an endless cycle, the building and breaking down of bone and muscle, giving her ten years's worth of hardness in the span of one.

And he liked her hands.

He always was a close standing, tactile sort. He'd literally tackled her without hesitation when they first met and sort of never let her go. He could drape his arms around her like it was nothing, and he very much liked to hold her hands. If one of their hands were free, he'd hold hers as they walked. Other times, he would simply take her hands in his own during a calmer moment, idly pulling at the fingers to tease away the tenseness in her joints, brows always jumping a little when something cracks.

Never shying away from the rough, unsympathetic texture, leaning towards her as she wandered over his face and through his hair, with the gangly, scars-on-scars hands that her classmates are too nervous to ask about.

Connie had never expected Gems to have such soft hands.

On some intellectual level, it does not surprise her. A Gem does not have skin to scar and weather and callus, and Steven's healing magic runs through his blood whether he wants it or not. It does not make it any less jarring on her human mind, that the soft knuckles nudging across her face like they'd never worked a day in their life had broken the dashboard of a car at the bodily age of 8.

She figures out, slowly, that it isn't quite restraint. 

It is not restraint that he does not crater the ground around him as he walks. It is not restraint that he does not break everything in his hands. It's more of an arrested momentum, still and always waiting.

So for all his strength, for all his terrifying, terrifying power, she's never really been afraid _of_ him.

And he is so, so careful.

So careful that it takes her an embarrassingly long time, time she will not admit to needing, to realize he has claws. Because when they were little and the Gems had hid much more than the past from Steven, he had aggressively clipped them down to a near human length, never realizing they were supposed to be there all along. But now he's older, and his wide, curling claws have grown with him.

She hardly ever sees them. He's too careful for that.

Oh, she'll get brief flashes of them. She'll see them when he lifts something heavy, or climbs a wall (because climbing Spinel's injector wasn't just a fluke, and her weird alien boyfriend can scale sheer surfaces like a spider). She'll see it when he startles, and it's a private hobby of hers to make him jump, because there's something funny-cute-morbid about the radiating flex of his claws and fangs, the telescoping of his diamond pupils.

He is less careful when he sleeps.

When he sleeps, there is nothing to stop her from taking his hands the way she was always welcome to while he was awake. There is nothing to stop her from kneading at his hands, feeling knobbly bones at the edge of his fingers nudge forward as she teases his claws out. There's a vague pearlescence to them, like the Diamond's aura of Rose's fountain, and they're almost large enough to rival a mortal lion's.

_I was right. When I was Stevonnie, I felt extra bones in their fingers. It makes sense. Retractable claws require a full finger bone. That's at least twenty more bones than a baseline human. How many extra bones does Steven even have?_

_Wait. How many bones does Sten have. I'm pretty sure Vendan doesn't have bones. God, that's a mouthful. Walking around with bones and no bones at the same time. A contradictory existence. Schrodinger's bones, if you will-_

"C'nni?" he slurs blearily. "Wht'r you gon' on 'bout..."

"Don't worry about it, biscuit." she hums, running her fingertips along the blade of his claws like she would her sword, winding him back down to sleep.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Connie has the hands of someone who knife fights in dark alleys for money. Change My Mind


	13. The Stars And The Stripes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Connie shatters Steven's worldview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Accessibility warning for vision or reading impaired: this chapter contains minor passages with exotic formatting. These are deliberate stylistic choices and are not intended to be visually/verbally coherent.

* * *

He has a habit when he touches her. Not a _bad_ habit, just... a habit.

A habit of tracing lines. His sheathed claws slowly ghosting in swirling, concentric waves like the easy turbulence of water. Always in intent, set patterns, tracing a path along her skin that only he could see.

=<>=

"I've always wondered."

Steven turns away from the communication panel.

"Why are Gem panels only, like, one color?"

"What do you mean?"

"You know." She gestures vaguely at his monochrome pink panel. "Just one color. I mean, look at yours. It's just pink."

"What? No. There's plenty of colors." He points at different, seemingly pink spots on the panel. "There's ̷͈̑̿̃̇̽̇̽͒̕͝ ̴̨̡̨̨̠̞̲̪̞̣̖̳͕͒̊͂̃̊͐̅̊͂͘ ̸̢̞̻̗͈̗̦͐̉̓͋̃̒̒̿̅ ̴̧̨̡̟̯̫̞̉̈̒ ̴̧̛̲͕͉͚̠̥̹̼͔̖̮̺̠̿ ̴̨̧̛̣͖͈̞͙͈̲̪͈̮̻̤̂̽̏̈̐̄̊̇̋̈́̕͝ͅ ̷̡̫̟̺͙̣͉͇̲͙̻̯̿̉̎͑͗͊́̿̾̕͠ ̸̧̳̼̦̓̈́͑͛ ̵͈̠͙͕͍͖̭͕̻̫̫͖̩͐̂̎̑̍̌͌̄͌ ̷͙̘͙̪̫̥͉̓͒͆̂͛̾́̊̌̾̒͌̽̒͝ ̵̛͍͐̉͗̿ͅ ̴͙̹̬̦͙̩͚̖͗̈́̋͌́̇̉͆̿͌̚ ̷̨̡̤̟̼͎͍̘̄͂͂̂̏̐͝͝ ̸̡̗̖͉̲͌͌͌̑̈́̿̅͘̕͜͠ͅ ̸̮̰̙̦̜̗̻̲̿͌̌̿̈́̒̈́́͑͆̒̂͠ ̷̖͙̟̬̳̃͋̆͋̈́͆̚ ̶̛̼̰͙̞̫͔̲̼͙̻̤̖͓͆͊̍̆͗̏̐̃̃̀͝ ̵̣̹̐̄̿̈́͊̀̕͘͝ ̶̛̺̑̅ ̶͕̳̳͉͈̠̱̣͋͊̓̇̈́̏̊͂̈̿̀̃̏̚ and some ̴̪͓͖̲͒̋̽̀͒́̓ ̶͚̼̂͋̒̈́̒ ̵̢̱͔̯̰̰̑̐̊͜ ̸͓̰̼̝̗͎͚̗̱̞̬̞̰͚̙̔̄̈́̈́̕͝ ̴̨̨̟̰̙͗͒̂̽̈́͒͐͒̕ ̶̧̨̧̪̙̮̩̞̯͔̼̟̹͔̒͋̍͋̈́͜ ̶̧͔̜̣̘̯̞̬̏͐͊̀̔̎̽̄̃̎̕ ̵̡̦̆̏̅̓̅̏̌̕ ̶̙̭͉̗̦͔̳͓̱̗̣̙̓̄̍͊̆͆͑̐̆͂̔͜ ̴͚̋ ̷̻̘͒ - oh, and a bit of ̷͍̊ ̸̗ ̸̡͌ ̷͕̀ ̷̪̐ ̸̘̔ ̴͓͝ ̵̘̔ ̵̘͗ ̷͔̅ right along here."

"Steven. Sweetie. My Biscuit. What, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, the fuck."

"..." He turns his own words back over in his mind, trying to find where he went wrong. "The colors. You don't have those words?"

"All I got was arcade noises out of you, honey. Adorable and entirely unhelpful."

"Uhhhhhh..." His pupils shutter mechanically like camera lenses trying to sift through his thoughts. "...I think y'all call it ultraviolet?"

Ultraviolet. 

_Ultra-fucking-violet._

"Steven I can't see ultraviolet."

"Oh, you're colorblind? Wild."

"Steven, I'm-" she drags a hand across her face. "I'm not colorblind. Humans can't see ultraviolet."

"You can't?" He stops his fiddling at the panel, looking out into space.

"Nope."

"But- all the science papers..."

"Machines were developed so that we could approximate it. Steven, why did you think human electronic displays only use RGB?"

"Technological limitations?" He flushes a bit at her flat stare. "Y'know, like the old black and white pictures."

_Okay, that's actually a good reason._ "The displays look like that because that's the visual range of a normal human eye."

"But-" He holds a hand to his head like his entire worldview just got built and shattered in an instant. "Stevonnie, you- Stevonnie has my eyes. You never said anything."

"It's natural for _you_ , so it's natural for Stevonnie. Also, we're talking about senses that my human brain physically cannot comprehend. Can't hold on to a sense memory I have no way to possess. It's like how people who become blind can forget what seeing is like."

"Huh."

"So," she stage-whispers, "got any wacky color secrets to tell me?"

He laughs shyly.

"Come on. Tell me. I am your humble vassal. I beseech you, my lord, give me the secret knowledge of the forbidden shrimp gods."

Okay, okay," he giggles. "Humans... have stripes."

"No, I want a real secret!"

"It _is_ real! Y'all got stripes! I got stripes too, on Sten's side. Everyone's stripes are, different? I don't know how to explain it." There's a bit of a smiling blush on his face. "I, uh, like your stripes. It's _you_ , y'know?"

"That is almost the weirdest and sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me." She coyly leans forward. "Is that why you always trace patterns on me?"

" _I don't know it's just kind of cathartic but in retrospect that's probably kind of creepy since you can't see it I am so sorry-_ "

"No! It's nice!"

"I can't believe this whole time you were just _letting_ it happen-"

"It's cute!"

_"No!"_

" _Let me be your emotional support zebra-_ "

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Humans do actually have stripes. It's called Blaschko's lines. They are only visible under UV light, or if a person has certain genetic skin disorders (since the discoloration will follow the path of the lines).

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Kudos, comments, critique, and despaired keening cries equally welcome.
> 
> This is, finally, the last chapter of Like A Word, A Sound, A Song. It is not, however, the end of the concept.  
> I'll be writing a sort of direct sequel to this in the For A Diamond Is A Marveled Thing series that the fic takes place in, taking place while connie is in college. I couldn't get to all of the prompts y'all asked for in this part, but I'm saving some of them for connie's fun college adventures.
> 
> Fic will feature  
> -outsider pov Connie The Married Mysterious Knife Girl  
> -outsider pov Connie's Mystery Husband  
> -Technically Connie Is A Delinquent With All The Dorm Rules She's Breaking  
> -Steven Is Still An Alien  
> -Connie Has PTSD, Whoops
> 
> Join the Discord server for draft bits, behind the scenes nonsense, yearning questions of my questionable literary choices, and future stories.
> 
> https://discord.gg/xdhnqKj
> 
> This series now has a dedicated written timeline for the curious in the series companion guide, which is the last "fic" listed in the series page.


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